Colombo, Mar 14: Sri Lanka has repatriated the remains of 84 Iranian sailors who were killed when their frigate was sunk by a US submarine, an official said.
Last week on Wednesday, Sri Lanka said it had recovered 84 bodies of Iranian sailors after the US submarine attack sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena off Galle on the island’s southern coast.
The ship was returning to Iran from Visakhapatnam, India, where it had participated in a naval fleet review exercise.
“Human remains were sent by the Iranian embassy on Friday – all 84”, a foreign ministry spokesman said.
They were sent on a chartered Turkish airliner, which departed on Friday, reporters present at the Mattala international airport in the southern district of Hambantota said.
The Chief Magistrate, Sameera Dodangoda, gave the order on March 11 to the Director of the National Hospital at Karapitiya to hand over 84 bodies of the sailors from Iris Dena to the Embassy of Iran.
Following the magistrate’s court order, the arrangements were finalised.
The bodies were kept at the Karapitiya hospital in Galle along with 32 survivors who were warded as a result of the US torpedo attack on the ship on March 4.
The Sri Lankan government had earlier said they will be keeping the bodies until the situation would improve so as to repatriate them.
They were being kept under makeshift refrigeration as the hospital’s morgue capacity was found inadequate.
The 32 survivors had been discharged on Sunday and sent to the nearby Sri Lankan airbase at Koggala, Galle.
